EAFL

March 12, 2010

Posted by Kanga

Wednesday, I took the afternoon away from work to go to the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. We attended a panel discussion session on The Book Club Phenomenon. Authors present were (left to right) David J. Taylor, Chris Cleave, (moderator Rosie Goldsmith), Rachel Hore, and RJ Ellory. Admittedly, I had not heard of any of these authors prior to today. We enjoyed the session and it was interesting to hear the perspectives of the authors and to see the vast differences in their personalities.

Afterward, we bought a few of books and got them autographed. A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory, which he himself says is a dreadful book. We had a lovely, short chat with him about Dubai and what brought us here. (Our favorite topic, but he initiated it.) Unfortunately, it did not occur to me to take pictures until later. Next was The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. We had a nice chat with him, too. He’s on Twitter, so he took down DaddyBird’s “handle” and had already “tweeted” to him before we got home.

Next was Qais Sedki, author of the first Arabic Manga series, Gold Ring. It isn’t available in English, yet, but we bought the Arabic first issue anyway. We chatted with him also. He is very interested in promoting both reading and Emirati culture. I look forward to the English version.

The following day the authors participating in the festival went out to schools, so I got to hear Imran Ahmad speak and got a signed copy of Unimagined: a Muslim boy meets the West. I haven’t read it, yet, but I suspect that I may be seeing to it that friends and family get a copy of this one.